Key Takeaways from the Anti Epileptic Drug and Devices Trials Conference

Just back from Miami, USA where I had the chance to attend The Anti Epileptic Drug and Devices Trials Conference two weeks ago.
We have been very proud to see that SynapCell now belongs to the restricted veteran club of this meeting, as it’s indeed been already 8 years since we’ve started being an active player of this major network dedicated to drug development in Epilepsy.

Along the past few years we’ve seen there a bunch of achievements in the field of Epilepsy Drug Development: several new AEDs approvals, drug candidates crossing important milestones but also sadly other projects abruptly terminated, sometimes even in Phase 3…

There were also a number of new comers this year, showcasing a strong pipeline of new AEDs and Devices, bringing new hopes for curing epileptic patients, confirming again the huge need for new medications and therapeutics.

As we speak, still one patient out of three today remains untreated by existing AEDs, symptomatic of an outdated, no-longer-working development paradigm, leading as a consequence to inefficient drug development in Epilepsy for the past 20 years.

Avoiding late stage failures and therefore improving drug development goes with the ability to decide early whether or not a project should be continued.
Hence the increasing need for predictive biomarkers of drug efficacy capable of giving project leaders the likelihood of success of a candidate by predicting efficacy on human patients.
Since 2005, our predictive EEG-based solutions and models have enabled the validation of an extensive library of AED candidates. Specifically designed for the identification of new promising therapeutics for Epilepsy, the MTLE mouse, our predictive model of focal Epilepsy, offers several advantages for AED evaluation, in particular because it perfectly mirrors human drug refractory Epilepsy.

This powerful asset for Epilepsy drug discovery has been highlighted during my talk at the AED conference, and I would be delighted to tell you more about it.

We look forward to speaking with you about your projects in Epilepsy!

Corinne ROUCARD, PhD.
CEO